Fitzgerald Architects

Fitzgerald Associates Website Interaction + Design

Abstract

Fitzgerald Architects is a 98-year old architecture firm with deep roots in Chicago. We were asked to develop the digital experience for their website. An intense user interface study was conducted to ensure the site was beautiful, dynamic, and functional.

The main question we needed to answer was "How do we display over 125 projects, 100 articles (and growing), and 25 solutions in a dynamic, searchable, and filterable way without overwhelming our audience?"

Credits

Rigid Materiality

The user interface design was approached in the same vain as a building: through engineering then construction—two key tangential and foundational disciplines of architecture. Beginning by employing a rigid grid as a backbone for the content, typographic and image components are layered on top of each other to create a dimensional hierarchy. Architectural graphics played a role in style and form, including a blueprint title block informing our decision to align the main menu sideways throughout the site.

Simplifying redundant information verticals

Originally, our sitemap of content was overloaded with deep categorizations in three areas of content: stories (news and other narratives), solutions (various areas of expertise), and projects (specific case studies). Rather than separate these areas, the solution was to combine them into a dynamically filtered content master page.